Do I Need the JSON Files From Google Takeout?
Do I need the JSON files from Google Takeout? Yes, until their dates and GPS are written into the photos. After that, you no longer need them.
Yes, you need the JSON files from Google Takeout until their dates, locations and captions are written into the photos themselves. After that, you no longer need them, and you can delete them.
The reason is simple. Google Photos does not put everything it knows about a photo back into the image file when you export. It writes that information into a small .json file beside each photo. For many photos, that text file is the only place where the real date survives. This page explains what the files hold, what breaks without them, and when they stop being useful. For a field-by-field look at one opened file, see what the JSON files in Google Takeout are.
What each JSON file holds
Almost every photo and video in the export has a partner file with a name like IMG_2045.JPG.supplemental-metadata.json (older exports use IMG_2045.JPG.json). Three fields in it matter most:
photoTakenTimeis the date and time the photo was taken, as Google Photos showed it. If you corrected a date inside Google Photos, your correction is here and nowhere else. More detail is in photoTakenTime explained.geoDatais the location: latitude, longitude and altitude. It includes places you added by hand in Google Photos. When a photo has no location, the values are all zero.descriptionis the caption you typed in Google Photos, if you typed one.
The file also has the original filename (title), the upload date (creationTime), and sometimes people tags and a "favorited" flag. It is plain text and a few kilobytes at most.
What breaks without them
Programs such as Apple Photos, Windows Photos, File Explorer, Finder and phone galleries never open the .json files. They read only the date inside the image, called the EXIF date. When the image has no EXIF date, they fall back to the file date. In a fresh export, the file date is the day you downloaded or unzipped the archive.
So if the JSON data never reaches the photos, you see these problems:
- Every photo is dated the download day. Screenshots, WhatsApp and Messenger images, scans, downloaded pictures and photos edited in Google Photos often have no EXIF date. They all land on one day in the timeline, often thousands of them together. Why Takeout photos show the wrong date covers this in detail.
- Photos have no GPS. Places you added in Google Photos, and locations Google estimated, are only in
geoData. Without it, the map in your new app is empty for those photos. - Captions are gone. The
descriptiontext does not exist anywhere else in the export. - Your date fixes are lost. A date you corrected in Google Photos is in
photoTakenTime, not in the file.
A normal photo straight from a phone camera usually keeps its EXIF date, so it is less affected. But almost every library has a large share of photos without one.
The album metadata.json files
Each album folder also has one file called metadata.json. It describes the album, not a photo: the album title, sometimes a description and a date. Photos do not need it. Tools that rebuild albums, such as immich-go, read it during import. If you only want the albums as folders, the folder names already carry the titles, so you can delete these files with the others. What happens to albums in Google Takeout explains the folder layout.
When you stop needing them
You stop needing the JSON files when the information in them is inside the photos. This step is called merging. A tool reads each sidecar and writes photoTakenTime into the photo's EXIF date, geoData into its GPS tags, and description into its caption field. After that, every app reads the right date and place from the photo itself, on every computer and every cloud service.
The safe order is:
- Merge the JSON data into the photos.
- Check a few photos that had no date before, such as a screenshot, a WhatsApp image and a video.
- Delete the
.jsonfiles, or keep them. They do no harm either way.
You can merge with exiftool (free, command line), GooglePhotosTakeoutHelper (free, command line) or a desktop app. Merging JSON metadata into photos compares them.
One exception: if you import into Immich with immich-go, or into PhotoPrism, those tools can read the Takeout sidecars themselves during import. Keep the JSON files until that import is complete.
Doing it without the command line
Takeout JSON Metadata Fixer is a desktop app for Mac, Windows and Linux. It reads every sidecar, including the cut-off names and the (1) duplicates that simple scripts miss. It writes the dates, GPS and captions into the photos and reports which photos matched a JSON file.
The first 500 photos are free, and Premium is $19.99 once. Everything runs on your computer.
Frequently asked questions
Do I need to keep the JSON files?
Only until the merge is done and checked. After the dates, locations and captions are inside the photos, the JSON files have nothing left to add. Many people keep the original Takeout zips for a while as a backup, which also keeps a copy of the JSON files. The steps to remove them are in Can I delete JSON files from Google Takeout?
What happens if I delete them before merging?
The photos stay the same quality, but the information that was only in the JSON files is lost. Photos without an EXIF date show the download day, places added in Google Photos are gone, and captions are gone. You cannot rebuild a deleted JSON file. The only way to get it back is to request a new Takeout export, or to take the files from the original zips if you still have them.
Do I need the JSON files if my photos came from a phone camera?
Usually less so, because camera photos normally carry their own EXIF date and often GPS. But a date or place you changed in Google Photos is only in the JSON file. Check with a tool before you delete anything.
Does Google Photos need the JSON files if I upload the photos again?
No. Google Photos ignores them on upload and reads the date inside the image. That is why you merge first, so the date is in the image when you upload it.
Do I need the JSON files for videos?
Yes, in the same way. Videos have their own sidecars, and without a merge many videos show the download date too.